Chapter 2

So my first 6 months or so of being in Oregon are over. And let me tell you... wow. I worked my butt off during those 6 months. I completed 1 and a half years (give or take) of school in 5 months... while working full time overnights... while fencing 3-5 hours 5 days a week. I think I wrote something like 85 papers since July 7th (I know this cuz thats when I got this new computer with all the papers on it, and sadly the papers didn't come with the computer;)). But I got through it. I can't decide if thats a good thing or not, cuz I feel invinsible. You know that feeling when you are like 20 and nothing in the world is gonna stop you? Ya, thats me... it worries me cuz knowing myself now that I don't have 20 hours of stuff taking up my day, I am gonna find new things to fill my days back up to 20 hours of stuff. Ah well... thats just me... I don't think I have slowed down life in 10 years. I am gonna keep running full tilt til I collapse. But no one will ever be able to say I didn't live life to the absolute fullest :D.
Anyway, christmas was awesome. It was nice being home. And guess what... I don't think I spent an hour just sitting around doing nothing. I was running around like a rabbit. But it was good to see Lauren as much as I did, and it was awesome of her to go to Jay's wedding with me (if she wears that black dress out more often, the guys are gonna be drooling over her!!!). And it was good to see Maggie and AM and the fencing boys. Family parties were as wonderful as always. I gotta get down to LA sometime this summer and hang out with my cuz. He lives on the beach... lucky kid. But all in all, Christmas=two thumbs way up.
And with that little intermission, its back to Oregon and the start of chapter two of my life in Oregon! So far I have opened it with two 7 hour or so days of fencing. My legs hate me for takin that week and a half off. But I am gonna teach some swing dancing tomorrow which will be a blast. And I am gonna try to find a place to swing dance regularly once a week. Luckly you don't need to bring a partner. My last swing dance partner happens to be 2500 miles away. Well, thats all for now. Peace out... pictures of my apartment and pics of me in my spiffy new fencing warm ups are on their way. Commemnt on my notes, either on this blog or when they get imported to facebook if you are reading these so I can play to my audience ;). Laters all.


P.S. Any of my Oregon friends, if you ever want to shoot a game of darts, my brother bought me a dart board for christmas! Then you'll be able to hit people with swords AND throw things at them!

Of Lauren

Wow... I am back in Michigan again... crazy how fast time flies in Oregon. Its good to be back and although my stay here is going to be brief, and jam packed with things to do again, I am happy to be home.

Lauren is one of my very best friends. She picked me up last night from the airport at midnight even though I only called her at 8 to ask. One of the hardest parts of me moving to Oregon was moving 2500 miles away from her. She is wonderful. Intelligent, funny, darn good looking. You name it, she's got it. While it may have been difficult to watch me move away, she has been one of my biggest supporters of my dreams, and I can't begin to put into words what she has meant for me. Really this post is just to let her know that she will always be one of my closest friends, and I always be there when she needs me. Merry Christmas kiddo...


Lauren: The best, greatest, most magnificent, awesome, spectacular doctor there ever was and ever will be :-)

Car Problems... and a metaphor for my life.

So heres the story... driving around town today takin care of a bunch of random business that I had to take care of and I decided that maybe it would be a good idea to actually eat some food. So I stopped for lunch, ate some tasty sushi and jumped back in the car. Lo-and-behold, the car didn't want to start. Now I am not going to lie, being broke like no other, I drive the tank pretty close to E most of the time. Well I thought that it bit me in the butt and that I was out of gas. So I walk on down to the nearest gas station, swallow my pride and ask for the spare gas can cuz I was dumb and ran out of gas. Take it back to my car, proceed to drop in the gallon or so that would take me to the gas station. Jump in the car, try to start it up... no such luck. Now to fully appreiciate this story, I have to tell you that is was a BEAUTIFUL day when I started on this trek around most of the extended portland area. Clear blue skies. Wonderful. Now as I am sitting in my car wondering what the hell I am gonna do, it literally went from what a wonderful day to hard down pour with lovely little chunks of icy snow like material. Not making this up at all. So I am sitting there in a car that doesn't run with the sky opening up on me.

Pause.

How is this a metaphor for my life you may be wondering from the title? Well, life has been REALLY tough lately... I have been getting my ass kicked on pretty much everything I have been attempting. Its not easy being out here in Oregon on my own. And while Mike (my coach) has been like a surrogate parent for me, its still tough when I have to fight for every dream I have. Not to sound whiney, but just once, I would like things to go like I picture things in my head. So anyway the car and my life... life just seems to want to make my car die and leave me in the freezing rain.

Play.

Now I had a couple of choices sitting in that car... the most obvious one was to slink back to the gas station, drop off the gas can and walk back to my fencing club. I could have sat in the car pissed off, called someone to pick me up (possibly... everybody who would pick me up was already at the fencing club). I didn't go for either of those... I went with the I am gonna make this car run. Now, I don't know anything about cars. But I do know that I am one stubborn and willful SOB that when it comes down to it, is gonna make things happen. I can't tell you exactly what happened, but I can tell you that if it were a Mexican stand off, the car blinked first. I kept trying to start it, pumpin the gas pedal, doing everything that I could think of to get some gas into that thing and, for just a quarter of a second, there was life. Thats when I knew the car had lost. 15 minutes later, I was back on the road.

Epilogue.

Metaphor for Adam's life: I have dreams, and though the car is gonna stall, and life is gonna pour down on me like a 20 pound sledge hammer, I will not quit. I will not back down. Nothing in this life will stop me from obtaining my goals.